The conference organizers have been kind enough to provide a 20% discount to readers of this blog for the main conference (the first day, training day is already sold out). Please use discount code: imc-speaker when you register.

Vancouver is a gorgeous city and this is a fantastic conference. I hope to see you there.

Monday, August 17, 2009

Staples is bringing back The Most Wonderful Time of the Year, perhaps the most well-known and loved back-to-school television commercial ever created. I can’t believe that the commercial series first ran 15 years ago! As a parent, it is kind of exciting to send the kids back to school. But that’s not what is making the summer doldrums fun in the social media world. Today was panelpicker day for the South by Southwest Interactive Festival. It’s the chance for the social media fishbowl to get its e-ticket to their version of Disney World, SXSWi in March. You’ve heard the stories about the panels, the parties, the technology and the fun! Well, this is a way for social media peeps to get their e-tickets. SXSW is a community driven event, where your voting accounts for about 30% of the decision-making process for any given programming slot. Personally, I find it exciting to read all (well, maybe not all) of the interesting and creative panel proposals from so many talented people.

There are over 2000 proposals, so it is pretty competitive. With the opening of the voting, SXSW was a hot topic on Twitter with many people asking for votes and promoting their panels. And several people didn’t appreciate it.

Sonny Gill wrote a great post today about the process, SXSW – Panelpicking or panelpimping. It seems that the community was a little overzealous in the pursuit of votes. I appreciate Sonny’s point of view and hope that I can be less intrusive in my solicitation of your vote.

I have been invited to speak with Saul Colt, Zoocasa’s Head of Magic on a topic near and dear to my heart:

Obviously, we all know that Twitter is more than having a sandwich. Learn from two savvy marketers who used Twitter to further their careers. Saul Colt and Warren Sukernek have each used Twitter effectively to find new positions.

Tuesday, August 4, 2009

Yesterday I read how the NFL was fining players who tweeted from training camp. I guess that is not surprising since the NFL is the most buttoned-up sports league and I doubt that they really get social media. As we've seen countless times, all command and control messaging. So I guess Mark Sanchez won't be tweeting during halftime a la Shaq or CV31 here.But to see this tweet from ESPN's Ric Bucher, now that's a shock. Pretty bizarre and not very fan friendly, if you ask me.

What do you think? Is this the new trend in uptight sports and the media who covers them?

8/4 Evening Update------------------------A more detailed Follow-up from the NY Times,

"The guidelines are more detailed than Bucher described them. But they restrict the freedom that ESPN employees might previously have enjoyed.

“We’ve been in the social networking space for a long time, and will continue to be there,” said Chris LaPlaca, an ESPN spokesman. “But we want to be smarter about how we do it.” He said that Bucher’s “interpretation of the policy is mistaken.”

The guidelines say that on-air talent, reporters and writers are prohibited from having sports-related blogs or Web sites and that they will need a supervisor’s approval to discuss sports on any social networking sites. They will also be restricted from discussing internal policies or detailing how stories are “reported, written, edited or produced.”

And from Mashable, a detailed report on ESPN's social media guidelines and Nate Smeltz, ESPN Publicist twitter response.

About

Many of us have found Twitter to be much more than a messaging platform, but a real community where friends, business partners, and acquaintances get together for conversation. This blog seeks to answer questions, point out tips, identify cool tools and talk about Twitter. Hopefully it will be helpful to newcomers and experts alike. It is patterned after the great Facebook related blogs Inside Facebook, All Facebook and FaceReviews.

There is a lot of great discussion going on about Twitter on many blogs. I won't duplicate those ideas, but hopefully this central place will make them easier to find.

You can learn more about me, Warren Sukernek, here. And of course, you can email me, ws AT Twittermaven DOT com or feel free to follow me @warrenss at our favorite place.